The fun of homebuilding

What's the trick to getting my homebuilders to to anything? My wife and I hired a local amish/former city boy team to do our house. We get alot of "we are coming tomorrow to do this...blah blah", but nothing get's done. It's a small,easy house and we've given them two of the four draws(money) so far with just the house framed up. They haven't done much since the past several weeks. Alot of nice weather keeps passing by. I thought about taking their sign down in my front yard and telling them I'll put it back when they start doing something. Choking their advertisement a little. But not sure if that would just tick them off. Maybe it's like this with most builders, this is our first time. Any pointers?

I am in the same boat, I hired a professional home builder to build our place. They've been pretty good so far, we started the process in late April by signing all the paperwork. We've had the house staked out and been removing trees around where it will be built. Apparently we "should" be moving in by late October. If you're already framed, then you're way ahead of me. LOL

As far as motivation, I really don't know what to tell you. Since it's a local family and not a corporation per se, then I don't know how you would go about becoming the squeaky wheel to speed up getting greased and not become the a**hole they don't want to deal with. The latter of course would leave you SOL and looking at a home frame while remaining homeless.

Sorry, not much help...

In reply to Conquest351:

The balance of squeaky/pain in the butt is a fine line. I've been trying to walk it very carefully. I guess it's being told when they are going to do something and they never show even when the weather is good. I don't like being bull-crapped.

Your story echoes my sister and brother in law's. Same state, too. Short Answer: Fortunately he had recently retired, and after months of the same crap, he simply showed up at the job site every morning, no body there by 8 am,, EVERYBODY started to get phone calls, from the architect to the gofer. After two weeks, and a couple of days of staying and watching ALL day, and then going over what was planned for the next day, they got on the stick and built the house. But it was amazing: build the house, the escrow money is yours. Simple, but it took prodding and poking to get them to work. They are hated by almost all involved in the build now, but, it got the job done.

i dont know what to tell you to do to get them to finish, but i certainly wouldn't give them any more cash! if you've paid them half of the cost and they have only framed it so far they are billing ahead of where they are. interior finishes and electrical/ HVAC/ Plumbing is half of the cos of most houses.

Yeah, it is a fine line. I think what I'm going to do is, every Friday, the crew is going to find a nice cooler filled with ice and beer/water. I'm always the "more flies with honey" type of guy. I figure that if they see that we appreciate what they're doing, then they'll go out of their way to make sure all is well. Maybe even give it that little extra that makes all the difference between ordinary and extraordinary (Waiting reference). LOL

build it yourself, that's what my parents did - we beat the pros next door by a little over a month with the three of us working. Swinging hammers, too, no air crap. We outsourced the sheetrock, the basement/foundation and the plumbing (due to law). That's it.

Any chance you put a clause in the contract that the work had to be completed by a certain date?

My 'rents did not do so with their kitchen remodeling and the contractor just stopped showing up towards the end of the project. They never heard from him again. He didnt get paid in full but probably got paid too much.

They ended up having to hire someone else to finish things up.

failboat wrote: Any chance you put a clause in the contract that the work had to be completed by a certain date?

THIS!!! ^^^

So that this...

failboat wrote: My 'rents did not do so with their kitchen remodeling and the contractor just stopped showing up towards the end of the project. They never heard from him again. He didnt get paid in full but probably got paid too much. They ended up having to hire someone else to finish things up.

Doesn't happen!

Good info - we are about to add on to our house and my shop..

our biggest problem so far, we call somone setup a time for them to come over to go over the project - and they never show up.. Business must be great!

Please tell me there's a contract outlining their responsibilities and a timeline. I know things can get a bit informal in rural areas, but if there's no contract you need to start damage control right now.

If it were me, I'd be on the phone with them asking for a written work plan, with start and completion dates for every phase of the project. I'd say I know that this is a pain in the ass and am happy to compensate them a bit for this new project management overhead (by adding 5% on top of the already agreed upon fee). I'd also say that I understand if things are slow right now for some real reason, but that it's important that things are completed by X date.

If they weren't willing to do that, I'd ask them to give me back the unused portion of what I'd paid them and we'll both go our separate ways.

If they balked, I'd say something along the lines of: "Just think it over for the evening. I'll call you back tomorrow and see if you've changed your mind. Having this much money on the line will make both of us a bit irrational and I'd rather have my lawyer handle it than try to harangue you for the cash."

If they still balked, I would follow through with at least talking to the lawyer.

Take notes on every phone conversation. Save emails.

This sort of E36 M3 can get really expensive. Everyone will be angry at the end if it's not nipped in the bud.

Oh please don't say this... we're just about to start a major renovation and we both have fears of the constractor walking away with the shell half done... they have a good reputation, but still...

Fletch1 wrote: What's the trick to getting my homebuilders to to anything? My wife and I hired a local amish/former city boy team to do our house. Any pointers?

You should photograph them to capture their souls and tell them that you're going to post the photos on the internet.

Then explain to them what the internet is.

When I was having my garage built at about 3/4 completion all work stopped. Builder had overbooked i guess. After a reasonable time I wrote a letter saying that I was going to cancel the contract and get some else to finish and that he would not get the final installment. Within a week if was finished. He was not happy. Too bad.

Fletch1 wrote: What's the trick to getting my homebuilders to do anything?

Hire me.

what the heck? when 85,000 people apply for 15,000 factory positions at the new VW plant, people can't show up for a job they contracted for?

Dang!

In reply to SVreX:

What do you charge to work in Illinois?

I have the same problem with the useless hack doing the storm repair on my house. It seems he spends all day on the internet on a useless car site and I just found out he has been sleeping with my wife!

This is the last time I hire myself to do anything!

Last two renovations/additions that we had done there was a large calendar posted where everyone working on the project could see. Each evening I would write what was done that day on the calendar. After the first 2-3 days the foreman was making a habit of giving me a list of what they had done so I could put it on the calendar.

Only blank days were waiting for concrete to cure or when it was pouring down rain. And this was duly noted on the calendar

I have been on the other side of this problem. I built a house with my uncle and we got screwed by the owner. We contracted to build a small one bedroom house that would be attached to an already standing garage.

All went well until we had the house framed and sheeted.. and then the changes started to come from the owner... when we eventually ran out of money due to all the changes. It still needed to be sided and sheetrocked inside.. we asked for more and he refused.. so we walked.

We were there everyday for July and into August, once the roof was on.. we did not even stop for rain..

petegossett wrote: In reply to SVreX: What do you charge to work in Illinois?

Same thing I charge to work in GA!

Wonkothesane wrote: I refuse to believe that things are "that bad" if I can't find people to give money to...

I think the problem is that managing small jobs in a manner that will make a a bit of profit is enormously difficult.

Most of the contractors I know would be happy to do small jobs if the customers were prepared to pay for the down time and inefficiency inherent in doing small jobs, but there are not too many people out there who will pay a premium for small jobs.

A small company with limited human resources is not capable of shifting to accommodate customer's changing needs and expectations, while a big company is not capable of doing the jobs at a price that is acceptable to the customer.

Customers are very demanding, and expect "professional" treatment, even though their jobs are, frankly, quite insignificant.

Plus, customers seem to think that since things are "that bad" they should have a right to expect to get a deep discount on the cost of the jobs (even though material prices are significantly higher than they were 2 years ago). It's not much fun underwriting other people's whims.

Construction is down about 70%. Trust me, things ARE "that bad", whether you believe it or not. Would you be happy if YOUR industry was down 70%?

I know what you mean by adding changes. We've changed the floor plan of our house 3 times and added and removed another 3-4 things. The blueprint is now complete and the house is staked out. Nothing solid has been done yet except me removing some trees and digging some things up.

mad_machine wrote: I have been on the other side of this problem. I built a house with my uncle and we got screwed by the owner. We contracted to build a small one bedroom house that would be attached to an already standing garage. All went well until we had the house framed and sheeted.. and then the changes started to come from the owner... when we eventually ran out of money due to all the changes. It still needed to be sided and sheetrocked inside.. we asked for more and he refused.. so we walked. We were there everyday for July and into August, once the roof was on.. we did not even stop for rain..

That's what change order is for. Get them to sign one for every change with a price on it.

You are correct that that is what a change order is for, but it doesn't solve the problem.

First off, you'd be shocked how many owners won't sign a change order under any circumstance. The choice for the builder becomes, "Do I make a mountain out of this now (and potentially stop the project entirely), or try to keep things flowing and hope for the best?"

Secondly, the bigger problem for a builder is the promises to the next job. If I bid a job that is supposed to take 3 weeks and an owner asks for changes which stretch it to 5 weeks, what do I tell the next customer I promised I would start in 3 weeks? The dynamic is that I end up staying on the current job and put off the next one, or start the next one on time like I promised and juggle 2 jobs at the same time.

Either one earns me the wrath of customer #2, and possibly an internet thread complaining that I don't show up or get the job done.

Of course, the fair response would be for me to tell customer #1 that I'd be happy to do the additional work, but that I am a man of my word and will have to go to customer #2 on time as promised while customer #1's job sit idle for several weeks, then come back and do the additional work. Yeah, that will go over well.

The solution for the consumer is to work with a company that is large enough to have multiple jobs running and the ability to move staff from one job to another when one slows down. However, these companies are expensive, and most folks don't want to pay the cost of working with them.

It's a catch 22.